Monday, August 13, 2012

Time Is But a Measure of Change

I saw another episode of the thought provoking TV-series Through the Wormhole, and here I go again: this time about time. I doubt that it exists as an entity of its own. It's just a convention we choose in order to note and measure change. That's all there is: change.

I found the formula for time in relation to velocity, on the NASA website:

"The standard equation for 'time dilation' is that the time passing on Earth will equal the time on the object * 1/sqrt(1-((v*v)/(c*c))), where v is the velocity of the object and c is the speed of light. At v=c this goes to infinity, or in other words, time would stop for an object moving at the speed of light. This is not a problem because objects can't go at the speed of light -- it would take an infinite amount of energy (and their mass would also become infinite).Dr. Eric Christian"

So it seems that to photons it's an eternal now.Also, isn't the formula surprisingly simple and elegant?

The existence of an arrow of time does not rule out a flow of time.Logically, however, if time did flow, it need not be in the direction indicated by the arrow.Time could flow from future to past, and an observer would thensee events "going backwards" relative to our own experience of the world.

Or in Einsteins own words:

"The distinction between past, present, and the future isonly a stubbornly persistent illusion."

About Me

I'm an author, artist, historian of ideas, and aikido instructor. I have also worked as a journalist for Swedish newspapers. I was a literature critic in Aftonbladet, a rock and theater critic in Dagens Nyheter, and the secret restaurant critic in Sydsvenskan. As an historian of ideas at Lund University, I write a dissertation on the thought patterns in creation myths.

My books are both fiction and non-fiction. Among the latter are books about Taoism, aikido, Tarot, mythology, and astrology. Some of them are only in Swedish, but I have written an increasing number of books in English.